Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for transferring substrates into and from a processing in a lithography apparatus.
Description of Related Art
WO 2012/146789 discloses a known system comprising a load lock chamber with a substrate handling robot comprising a robot arm. The robot arm comprises:
a handling body which is arranged for holding a substrate support structure which is arranged to clamp a substrate thereon,
a base that is movable along a rail oriented in a substantially vertical direction, and
a section connected to the base and the handling body, that enables the robot arm to translate and rotate a substrate clamped on a substrate support structure in a two-dimensional plane.
The substrate handling robot is arranged to receive a substrate clamped on a substrate support structure, and to transfer the clamped substrate towards a lithography apparatus which is arranged adjacent to the load lock chamber. The robot arm is arranged to reach out of the load lock chamber via a passage, and to transfer a clamped substrate to be processed towards the lithography apparatus. Similarly, the robot arm receives processed clamped substrates from the lithography apparatus, in order to move them back into the load lock chamber.
A drawback of the known system is that the jointed robot arm does not provide a stable and robust mechanism to transfer substrates. Moreover, the jointed robot arm requires a complex control system and several motors to control the individual sections of the arm and thus the motion of the substrate during transfer.
It is an object of the invention to provide a load lock system and lithography system which at least partially overcomes this drawback.